Category: Business of Behavior

“You can’t train a lion with force, so why would you do it with a dog?” I see this claim weekly on the Facebook pages of my dog training friends. It’s usually accompanied by a lovely photo or video of a lion, tiger, orca, or elephant calmly engaging in protected-contact husbandry care.

Running a group dog training class is an inherently different challenge than working individually with owners and their dogs. The behaviors you teach may of course be very different, but there are also the management questions. What sequence of behaviors will you teach? How will you manage the space? What will you do with dogs that are leash reactive (for social or aggressive reasons)?

When Marian Kruse entered the University of Minnesota in 1938, her ambition was to major in Latin and minor in Greek. Marian later wrote of “harboring the strange notion of becoming a Latin teacher in Alaska.” Before matriculating and heading to Alaska, however, even Latin majors were required to take a science course.